As she grows older, it is evident that her thoughts on the ills which women are heirs to, become more and more bitter. She speaks of it again and again, and almost all of her works give evidence of her strong feeling on the subject. But her originality, seen in the light of later day events, is in the publication of two short Essays, Complaints of Women, (Griefs des Dames), and The Equality of Men and Women, (L'Egalité des Hommes et des Femmes). These reveal to us, in Marie de Gournay, a feminist whom our present day suffragists would not be ashamed to acknowledge their leader.
The Complaints of Women, though published after the second Essay named above, really comes first. She begins this Essay with the very words quoted above from the Preface. But she returns to the charge more heavily loaded than ever before, for "she has suffered and knows whereof she speaks from her own experience!" She is exasperated by the fact that some men refuse to discuss and debate with women under pretext of courtesy to women, (soubs couleur de ne vouloir pas importuner personne de notre robe.) This is bad enough to her way of thinking but some men go even further, they refuse to even read what is published by women. "I know some who scorn absolutely the works of women without deigning to amuse themselves by reading them in order to know of what stuff they are made!" she cries out in anger, (Sans se datgner amuser á les lire pour sevoir de quelle étoffe elles sont.)
It is in 1622 that she gives shape, in a constructive way, to the ideas which have been developing in her mind for so many years on the ills of women. She then published the treatise called Equality of Men and Women, in which she expounds two principles which we are sorry to say she does not develop at length. They are the two principles for which modern Suffragists fought for years, namely the equal education of men and women, and the right of women to fill any position, civic or otherwise. It is interesting to notice that concerning the vote for women, Marie de Gournay is silent. This omission does not surprise us, however, inasmuch as suffrage for men to say nothing of suffrage for women, was little thought of in her time.
- ↑ Notice the orthography of her time.
